Comment by skippyboxedhero | Hacker News Reader

Comment by skippyboxedhero | Hacker News Reader

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skippyboxedhero

It doesn't. Some countries in Europe have this already. The UK has FASTER which is instant transfers between UK bank accounts (I seem to remember these transactions are settled instantly interbank at the BoE, so good tech if I have remembered right).

For non-P2P stuff like PayPal is very good because bank transfers are non-reversible. You can do G&S on PayPal and reverse that if you need to.

For P2P, stuff like Revolut, PayPal, whatever is still easier because you don't need to remember your bank account number. There is also no interoperability between banking apps either (the only interaction is through FASTER and your number). So you end up needing someone in the middle, like PayPal, which (in the end) is just doing bank transfers...not ideal but it is, at least, cheap.

Reason would suggest the latter will eventually change, but that day is not today.

Also, cross-currency transfers are significantly easier with apps. I agree that it is all a bit unnecessary but...banks are banks. In the UK, there has been a lot of competition and services are still (imo) dire.

In Poland we have BLIK for a few years already.

All major banks participate in it, and it's both P2P (send to target phone number, which will behind the scenes resolve to a bank account) and web payments (use a one-time code from your bank app and then confirm in the app, without sharing any permanent data like card numbers).

Also, it's instantaneous and free.

And in fact almost nobody in Poland uses Revolut nor PayPal for P2P, everybody uses BLIK. People do use Revolut for their great exchange rates though.

Phone numbers and one-time codes, sensible. I am in the UK and the term "fintech hub" is used too loosely (part of the problem is that banks have got so large and lazy here, there is competition, most of it terribly ineffective).

> (seem to remember these transactions are settled instantly interbank at the BoE, so good tech if I have remembered right)

No, participants have nostro/vostro accounts with each other, and payments are immediately settled using those. Participants shuffle money between those, including via accounts at the Bank of England if necessary, to maintain sufficient liquidity; they do that throughout the day, with a big cleanup at the end of the day, but it's not part of the transaction.

Which means that banks need to keep track of their balances with other participants, and not send customers' payments if that would take them overdrawn. Obviously this would be highly undesirable, so they work hard to keep those accounts topped up.

Thank you. I remembered I read something like that. Do you know if it is possible to clear with the central bank instantly? Over short enough timeframes I presume it becomes like trying to hit a moving target.

That i'm afraid i don't know!

In Australia, our New Payments Platform (which has been rolled out to almost all banks at this point) allows you to set up an email address or mobile phone number as your "PayID", which negates the major advantage you mention for P2P transfers. (People are still getting used to using PayIDs at the moment, so I still get many friends sending me their bank account numbers like they always have, but usage is definitely picking up.)

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